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Jul

28

How To Use Pokemon Go As A Learning Activity

With over 17,000 downloads on the Itunes store alone, Pokémon Go is going viral. While the game has been praised for getting kids out of the house and being more active, it has also stirred up a debate within the education community about the benefits the app can actually bring to learning.

If Pokémon Go is just a game, how do you make it educational? One teacher suggests using it as a lesson in data literacy. Students will use information from the game’s journal to record times and dates of certain events as they occur into an excel sheet. Once this data is recorded they can take it one step further by creating graphs or averaging out the number of stops made each day.

Another way to use the app as a learning experience is by teaching students the importance of GPS and mapping skills. By encouraging students to gather GPS points as they collect items, teachers can then show students how to find the coordinates for the locations. This activity can be taken a step further by having students look up the coordinates on Google Earth.

Digital storytelling is one of the favorite educational aspects of the app. The game boasts an augmented reality feature where students can take pictures of their Pokémon characters in the real world. Teachers can then encourage students to write creative stories about their characters based off the image which can also be used as a visual component that brings the story to life.

With all of the potential benefits Pokémon Go can bring to education, will you use Pokémon Go in the classroom this year? Why or why not?

For an additional list of educational activities check out these articles: